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Emerald Pools, Zion National Park: Day 6

Three days in Zion National Park aren’t enough..

I loved every minute we spent in the park and will be counting down the days till I return. I got an amazing first time Zion experience and I am excited return in the near future – to give a few more of the sights and sounds more love and attention!

On our third day in Zion we set sights on the hikes that we had not yet experienced. On your National Park Map you get once you enter the park, there are 15 hikes broken out into “Easy, Moderate and Strenuous.” I’m thrilled that in three days we did 11 of the 15 hikes! And we did have a dog waiting for us at home – so we could have spent more time in the park and potentially knocked out all 15 hikes in the three days – but as a responsible doggy daddy I had to make sure we didn’t leave our furry family member alone too long.

On our third day in Zion, we set out to explore a few of the remaining hikes on the to do list!

We started the day bright and early and set out to explore Lower Emerald Pool Trail, Upper Emerald Pool Trail, Kayenta Trail, Court of the Patriarchs, Zion Human History Museum and the Archaeology Trail… You know, slow day – haha.

The Emerald Pools exceeded our expectations – there was rainfall the night before which resulted in beautiful waterfalls from the upper pools into the lower pools!

The water flow even created stunning mirrored pools which gave us amazing reflections of the surrounding canyon walls – the pictures don’t do them justice at all!

I cannot stress the importance of having a good crew. There were four of us with totally different personalities and humors which kept the trip lighthearted, fun and entertaining for an entire week (which is A LOT of time to be in the car together). But I would do it again in a heartbeat if I could get the four of us together again!

The true natives of the park didn’t mind us hiking along the Keyenta Trail. They are very comfortable with the visitors in the park and weren’t even phased by us walking by.

We couldn’t resist the photo opportunity here at the Upper Pools. This cliff overlooked the mirrored pool below. The beams of lights were unexpected (and made the photos pretty gnarly) and really brought the different colors of the leaves and rocks to life.

I strongly suggest getting to the pools early in the morning so the rising sun can catch the waterfalls. It was cold, but standing under the falls (getting wet) and surrounding yourself in the almost glowing beads of water coming from above was an amazing feeling!

At this point of the trip, I really felt disconnected to the outside world. Being away from e-mail, cell phones and social media really let me appreciate the beauty around us – and the company of friends (so much deeper and stronger than any exchange on social media).

Knowing that our time in Zion was coming to an end was upsetting – but the weather was on our side during our trip and we got more done than we had originally set out to do!

Observation Point Trail, Canyon Overlook Trail, San Bench Trail, Pa’rus Trail and the entire 9.4 miles of the Narrows are on my bucket list! I cannot wait to tackle those trails in the future and welcome (and appreciate) any feedback from fellow readers who have experienced those hikes!

There is so much I could describe and explain – but pictures are worth a thousand words so I felt like it was easier to just share some highlights of this day on my Vimeo Channel!

Here is our Six Day in about two minutes:

Thank you for reading and following along! I know dragging out a week long vacation over 2 months of blog posts is a long time – But I have thoroughly enjoyed spending time each week pulling pictures and video clips together to relive this trip.

I’m sad that next week will be my last posting on this amazing Road Trip… But excited that the focus will then be on some new Mountain Biking trails that I’ve found near by in the Santa Cruz Mountains!